Chapter 55 Old and Strong

The gate of the wild goose was closed.

Geng Bingwen received a holy decree and ordered him to go out of the customs to attack Datong and cut off the road to the west of Beijing.

After Geng Bingwen received the holy decree, he couldn't come back to his senses for a long time.

Geng Bingwen's son, Geng Rui, said, "Father, I sent troops to meet the Northern Army once before. They're hard to deal with. Do you want me to find a way to get Your Majesty to take back your life?"

Geng Rui is married to Zhu Biao's daughter, which is also one of the reasons why Geng Bingwen is reused.

Geng Bingwen said, "No need. I've been prepared for today's situation. I just didn't expect to come and get it so quickly. The order goes down, the father and son are in the army, and the son returns. Brother in the army, brother back. Only sons are not recruited. The rest is to reintegrate and follow me out of the customs."

Geng Bingwen has been in Shanxi for so two years, and there are not many serious wars. But it was a war with Beijing. He is very familiar with the combat power of the Northern Army.

He was prepared for today's situation.

At the sound of an order, the army went out.

However, the northern army will soon find that Geng Bingwen's troops are difficult to deal with.

Because Geng Bingwen's department has almost no foot soldiers in the original sense.

Geng Bingwen's department can be divided into two parts, that is, the chariot and the cavalry.

There were more than 10,000 chariots and more than 20,000 cavalry. Among them, the specifications of combat vehicles are different, which are divided into large martial arts vehicles, small martial arts vehicles, and logistics vehicles. The Dawu Gang car has eight people, and it can be loaded with artillery. There were four people on Xiao Wugang's car, and there were only shooting holes. Attack with a fire bolt.

As for the logistics vehicles, they are all loaded with logistics supplies.

As for the cavalry, it is needless to say.

There were more than 50,000 or nearly 60,000 troops in total, but the livestock of the whole Shanxi were almost found.

This is also in recent years, the price of horses in the north has dropped sharply, whether it is in the army or in the civilian population has a large number of livestock, war horses may be scarce, but there is no shortage of ordinary pack horses. That's why it's so big.

Dawu Gang needs at least four war horses, that is, don't look at these people, but there are a lot of horses, at least 100,000 up.

When encountering the enemy, the chariots are outside and the cavalry is inside. If the northern army attacked in a horizontal formation, Geng Bingwen changed cavalry to attack. If the northern army formed a phalanx to protect itself, then Geng Bingwen continued to march. If the Northern Army is shelled with artillery.

There was also an artillery counterattack in the car formation.

Although it is said that the artillery of the Northern Army is superior to Geng Bingwen in terms of quantity, the Southern Army is not without artillery, and coupled with the transportation capacity, the number of artillery on both sides on this battlefield is not much different.

It's simply a turtle shell.

Geng Bingwen is slowly marching with a turtle shell.

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"What should I do?" Qu Neng called all the staff officers over and asked.

In the face of Geng Bingwen's turtle shell, there was nothing to be done up and down.

"My lord, in my opinion, now I can only use heavy artillery." A staff officer said, "There is nothing else to do about besieging Geng Bingwen and mobilizing heavy artillery bombardment from the rear."

Because of the march, heavy artillery was hardly used in the army. The heavy artillery without him is too heavy. Difficult to transfer. Ordinary infantry artillery can deal with infantry formations, who knows that Geng Bingwen got this turtle shell.

Of course, Qu Neng knew that it was useful to bombard with heavy artillery.

With heavy artillery bombardment, not to mention the mere car formation, even the city can be flattened.

But he had two things to think about.

The first problem is timing.

Although it is said that He Xi did not emphasize the suddenness of the attack on the northwest, and after sealing the altar and worshipping the generals, he entrusted him with all military matters, and almost did not ask, unless it was a major issue.

This is He Xi wants to emphasize the rules.

The boundaries of power between military ministers and civil officials.

Before deciding to fight a war, it is the domain of civil officials, and after deciding to fight a war, how to fight is a matter for military generals, of course, when military generals are fighting, there are no checks and balances. logistics, but also staff officers, and even intelligence. When a military general is fighting, it is impossible to hide all his actions from the imperial court. But as long as the battle is won,

The imperial court did not intervene, at most, after the fight, the autumn was settled.

Therefore, all the choices are in Qu Neng's hands.

For Qu Neng, one direction is trust, and the other is pressure.

Trust goes without saying. There is plenty of room for the generals to play. The pressure is also very high. Because once there is a problem, Qu Neng has no excuse to shirk. He even felt that if he lost the battle and killed himself, there was nothing to say.

After all, everything that should be given has been given.

So he has to think about the whole strategy.

Geng Bingwen's actions are essentially clear about the aftermath of the Western Expedition.

It's not to take Shanxi, although after annihilating Geng Bingwen, Shanxi's emptiness is certain. But after Shanxi is empty, can it be defeated? Qu Neng felt that he couldn't, so Geng Bingwen, who had to fight as soon as possible, didn't dare to go north.

The longer the fight with Geng Bingwen, the longer Shaanxi will prepare. The bigger the problem.

He wanted a quick fix.

Second, Qu Neng is the Privy Council after all. Although this official position has become a fictitious title after his expedition, there are already other people who preside over military affairs in Beijing. But Qu Neng also needs to think from Beijing's point of view.

Geng Bingwen and Fu Youde's training ideas are completely different.

Fu Youde had a lot of contact with He Xi, and got all kinds of news from Beijing, Fu Youde chose to learn from the Northern Army, almost a one-to-one replica of Beijing, this is of course one road, but Geng Bingwen took another road. That is the fighting style formed from the original Ming combat system after the addition of firearms.

It cannot be said that this direction is not right.

The car formation has had a good performance in the era of firearms. It's just that with the intensification of firepower, it disappeared from the battlefield, and later reappeared in the form of a tank, which can only be said to be not wrong in thinking, but only in terms of technical conditions.

Today, firearms are not very powerful.

Although Geng Bingwen's car formation is wooden. But it still provides some protection. If the fire gun infantry and the car formation were fired, the result would have been tragic.

Shelling with heavy artillery, naturally, there is no problem. However, every time he encountered Geng Bingwen's dispatch, he bombarded it with heavy artillery, and it was not a waste of time in every battle, and it was impossible for the Northern Army to carry heavy artillery.

And the car array is very easy.

After all, the arrival of He Xi has a great impact on this era.

In particular, iron tools have increased so much, although it is difficult to sharpen iron like clay lathes. But woodworking lathes are quite simple. Even the woodworking lathe is also the fist product exported by Zunhua Iron Works. There are purchases in many places. It has long been popularized since the Lushun shipyard.

Machining a large number of vehicles is actually very simple. Don't say more than 10,000 vehicles, as long as you are prepared, it is not a problem to come with tens of thousands.

If it turns out that Geng Bingwen's line of thought is right.

Qu Neng can foresee that the southern army that will be foreseen in the future is estimated to be a car formation.

Qu Neng pondered for a moment and said, "Anyway, let's touch it on the battlefield first."

If you don't touch it, you won't know the specific combat strength of the other party. If you don't know each other, you can't come up with any way to break the formation.

So, Qu Neng made up his mind.

A big battle between the two sides began.

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On the banks of the Sangan River.

Geng Bingwen lined up south of the river.

Nor is it a formation.

The biggest advantage of the car formation is that you don't have to set up camp. Because when the car swings, it is a camp. Layered on top of each other. And the soldiers don't need tents, and most of the time they can rest in the car.

And the biggest problem with the car formation is two.

The first is that the march is too slow.

Although there are many pack horses in the formation, the speed at which the formation can proceed is still limited.

The requirements for the road are also very high. The general road is not a no-go. Once the road is not good, the road must be repaired.

The second is that the consumption is too high.

It's not the consumption of people, but the consumption of livestock. A head of cattle is comparable

The appetite of man is much bigger. Therefore, although tens of thousands of troops were dispatched this time, the logistics materials required were at the level of 100,000. And even more, only then can so many mouths be filled.

Even then, it was only for a short time.

A long march is also unbearable.

Geng Bingwen knew this very well, so he didn't think about continuing to attack and capture Datong or anything. He was ready to set up camp on the banks of the Sangan River. After all, if you set up camp here, the entire Datong Basin must be afraid.

Because Geng Bingwen's location is almost the center of the Datong Basin.